Readers' letters: Islanders need a ferry fleet they can rely upon

The SNP’s failure to upgrade our ferry fleet has led to a surge in unplanned maintenance spend.

A freedom of information request revealed that CalMac spent £3.85 million on unscheduled work between April and November 2023 (Scotsman, 15 February) – an increase of almost £800,000 on the bill for the whole of 2022-23.

This huge increase in unplanned maintenance costs is the inevitable consequence of the SNP government’s rampant neglect of islanders, and the lifeline ferries on which they rely.

The ferry scandal goes to the heart of this SNP government and they need to urgently prioritise delivering a ferry fleet island communities can rely upon so they can get on with their lives without disruption.

The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry MV Glen Sannox undergoes a sea trial on a short trip under her own propulsion from the Ferguson Marine yard earlier this week (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

One of the Ferguson ferries – the MV Glen Sannox – started its sea trial this week, seven years after Nicola Sturgeon ‘launched’ the ship. It is years late and millions over budget.

The SNP’s colossal failures have meant our islanders have had to wait years longer than planned for lifeline ferry services and hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money has been squandered in the process.

SNP ministers must guarantee that this step finally heralds a new start for ferry services and an end to endless incompetence which has deeply damaged the economy of Scotland’s islands.

Cllr Alastair Redman, Kintyre and the Islands ward, Argyll and Bute Council

Two sides

Carolyn Taylor (Letters, 15 February) wants us to accept that Palestinians have the right to exist in peace. So do the people of Israel. There was a relative peace before October 7.

Two decades ago Israel left Gaza and handed over full autonomy. Billions of dollars of international aid were given to build a prosperous future. They built tunnels and rockets instead. The war is against Hamas. To understand the war you must appreciate that the hostages are more important to Hamas if they’re alive and Palestinian civilians are worth more to Hamas if they’re dead. And until you recognise that you actually don’t understand the war.

Lewis Finnie, Edinburgh

Ban athletes

Glasgow will be rightly proud to host the World Athletics Indoor Championships next month, a global sporting event bringing together more than 130 countries.

Athletes from two countries, Russia and Belarus, will be missing. The Olympic Committee now allows athletes from these countries to compete as neutrals, but Sebastian Coe has remained resolute in maintaining a complete ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes taking part in World Athletic competitions.

In an interview, Lord Coe told Inside the Games: “Athletics will not be on the wrong side of history.”

It is therefore to be expected that the same strict and ethical standard is applied to allowing Israel to participate in the championships.

Given the atrocities carried out by Israel on civilians in Gaza and West Bank, the contravention of the Genocide and Geneva conventions and the blatant disregard and disrespect for the International Court of Justice’s ruling, then surely Israeli participation must be disallowed. Otherwise, World Athletics will most definitely be on the wrong side of history.

Glasgow City Council has said that it has “strategy and actions aligned to the World Athletics social responsibility programme: Athletics for a Better World”.

If the council is sincere about this, then I would urge it to do whatever it takes to ensure that World Athletics shows consistency in its approach, and that the country of Israel is not represented in these games.

Ella Wilson, Lanark, South Lanarkshire

The whole truth

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” was the standard expected of those giving evidence at the recent sessions of the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh.

It now seems that some of the senior SNP figures took that as meaning these were options they could select from to suit their purposes (“Sturgeon told to give statement on WhatsApp messages”, Scotsman, 16 February).

So, when Nicola Sturgeon and others assured the inquiry that anything important in their WhatsApp messages would have been transcribed across to the Scottish Government’s official record keeping system, they concluded it was not necessary to go on to point out to the inquiry that no such transcriptions occurred. This was discovered by determined FoI requests, namely that there were ‘zero’ transfers from the WhatsApp messages of Nicola Sturgeon and a number of other Scottish Government ministers before they were then deleted on an industrial scale.

So as for that evidence in front of the judge-led inquiry, the truth perhaps, but it would appear anything but the whole truth.

Keith Howell, West Linton, Scottish Borders

Road to ruin

This evening I drove across Edinburgh, from Liberton to Leith, to visit my son. Naively I had thought that Liberton Brae must be the most pot-holed road in the city – and it is bad indeed – but I was wrong. The state of our roads are pretty uniform across the city it would seem, and they are uniformly bad.

At what stage does the council feel obliged to act? Our transport convener, Scott Arthur, obviously is anti-car but surely we, the residents and council tax-payers, must be embarrassed at the state his stance has allowed the town to fall into? Judging by the sheer number (and depth) of potholes, there has to come a time when the roads reach a point of no return. From what I experienced this evening, that point cannot be far off.

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Brutal times

As ever, a response from Fraser Grant (15 February) to letters pointing out the historical illiteracy of those who wish to change the name of the Redcoat Cafe at Edinburgh Castle emerged, hissing and spitting about the injustices meted out to Scotland in particular. He should remember that injustices were meted out indiscriminately in the 18th century and England suffered them too. Penalties were utterly brutal. Even children were hanged in England, for example.

He complains about survivors of Culloden being “executed, exiled or conscripted into the British Army”. This was an age of brutality, so things must be put in context. Near the end of my road, stones commemorate the execution of two Irishmen in 1815 for stealing £5. Their bodies were left hanging as a warning to others. When Burke (of Burke and Hare) was hanged, his skin was used for a book cover. It was only in 1727 that the last Scottish “witch” was burned to death in Dornoch!

Cumberland was quite normal for his time. Wellington routinely hanged his own soldiers. Goya produced some very gory pictures of the horrors meted out by and to both the French and Spanish. One of my ancestors was forcibly conscripted into Lord Ogilvie’s Forfarshire Regiment and fought unwillingly at Culloden. He survived, but it was the Scots Jacobites who forced their tenants into their army, not the British Army at that particular time.

Many of the Highlanders who emigrated to America like Flora MacDonald fought the American rebels for King George, despite their earlier treatment. It was a brutal age and no one emerged smelling of roses, so why pretend that they did?

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Starmer’s U-turns

Keir Starmer’s endless U-turns mean Labour will basically continue the status quo, if voted in.

Mr Starmer does not care about constitutional reform or Scotland and has backtracked on reforming the House of Lords as presumably undemocratic powers in the hands of the political elite is useful.

The Labour leader’s poll ratings are going down. This, for one, relates to his stance on Gaza where thousands of people, mainly women and children, are being slaughtered daily. He does not ask for a ceasefire.

Mr Starmer has backtracked on his green policy, axing his own £28 billion investment policy. This is irresponsible and not science-based as the average global temperatures have breached the critical 1.5C for the first time. While the US and EU and others are putting major green public investment programmes in place, Mr Starmer is apparently frightened of the fossil fuel industry.

Labour supports austerity rather than investment in public services and jobs. It also supports Brexit, producing year-on-year economic damage, especially in Scotland.

Scotland needs independence for democracy, including a decent foreign policy, and to pursue progressive and economically beneficial policies in a time of climate breakdown.

Pol Yates, Edinburgh

Cleaning stables

Whatever the outcome of the Rochdale by-election, Labour unquestionably did the right thing in ditching the candidate with the off-the-wall views on the reasons for the latest conflict in Gaza. His opinions are exactly the diametric opposite of what I have always understood to be the values of the UK Labour Part.

They are far better off without him and with those who think like him. An Augean Stables clean-out by Labour of the Jeremy Corbyn remnants and the extreme left and antisemites is essential; if it costs points in opinion polls, so be it.

Any possible loss in Rochdale will be more than compensated by gains elsewhere and, perhaps more importantly, respect and admiration in the eyes of the electorate across the UK.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh